Marvin Zuckerman's theory of personality

Marvin Zuckerman's theory of personality It is best known for introducing the factor called "Sensation Seeking", which has had a great influence in the field of personality psychology.

Beyond the relevance of the sensation seeking dimension, the model itself is an interesting alternative to the Big Five, the prevailing theory, because it is based on the biological factors of personality described by Hans Eysenck.

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Life and work of Marvin Zuckerman

Marvin Zuckerman was born in Chicago in 1928. After receiving his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from New York University, he conducted research on anxiety through personality analysis, mainly through tests psychological.

during their studies on sensory deprivation at the University of Delaware, where he worked for more than 20 years, Zuckerman found that some subjects tolerated very the experimental situation well, while others showed very negative reactions to the lack of stimulation environmental.

Based on these results, Zuckerman began to hypothesize about the existence of a basic personality factor related to sensation seeking, which would depend on the optimal level of activation of each individual. Thus, people who need a lot of stimulation to feel comfortable will have a greater tendency to seek sensations.

Zuckerman retired in 2002. He is currently 79 years old and continues to write articles and book chapters. He also continues to constantly revise and expand his theories on personality.

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An alternative theory to the Big Five

Zuckerman's theory of personality arose as a alternative to the big five personality factors model, also know as "Big Five" and "Ocean," which was originally developed by McCrae and Costa. This author's main criticism of the Big Five is the presence of cultural factors, particularly the Openness to Experience dimension.

By contrast, Zuckerman's theory focuses on the biological dimensions of personality. In this sense, the influence of Hans Eysenck's PEN model is very notable, which defines three main personality factors with a clear biological basis: Psychoticism, Extraversion and Neuroticism.

Zuckerman and his collaborators developed this theory using various psychobiological tests, including the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and Zuckerman's own Sensation Seeking Scale, and submitting the results to a factor analysisin order to identify the dimensions higher order personality.

The 5 personality factors

The work of Zuckerman's team concluded with the detection of a variable number of personality factors, between 3 and 7. They decided that the grouping in 5 dimensions was the most balanced in terms of specificity and parsimoniousness.

The Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire is used to measure these traits.

1. Impulsivity-Sensation Seeking

Sensation seeking includes the need to experience new emotions and situations, as well as the tendency to take risks in different areas of life. Impulsivity and the Psychoticism factor Eysenck's would also be included in this dimension, which has been related to alterations in the levels of testosterone, dopamine and serotonin.

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2. Sociability

The sociability factor is very similar to the Extraversion of the Eysenck model and the Big Five. The items in the Zuckerman questionnaire that weigh in this dimension measure aspects such as a taste for interaction in large groups of people or a dislike for solitude.

3. Neuroticism-Anxiety

Zuckerman's Neuroticism is equivalent to that described by Eysenck, which is related to the activity of the sympathetic nervous system and with the fight or flight reactions that are triggered by stress. Neurotic people commonly experience feelings of fear, obsessive rumination, indecision, or sensitivity to criticism.

4. Aggression-Hostility

This factor is associated with anger, aggressiveness, impatience, rudeness and antisocial behavior. It correlates inversely with the Likeability dimension of the Big Five Personality Factors model.

5. Activity

People with high Activity scores feel restless when they have nothing to do, have a lot of energy, and tend to be persistent. Besides tend to prefer to do activities that involve a challenge or that require a high level of effort.

In Eysenck's model, this factor is included in Extraversion, which depends on the level of cerebral alertness (or arousal). According to Eysenck extroverts have chronically low levels of arousal, so they need a higher degree of environmental stimulation than introverts to feel good.

Validity of the Zuckerman model

It is generally considered that personality models composed of five independent factors, which are habitual, are quite useful for exploring personality, since they encompass a good number of different facets without exceeding the amount of information.

However, Zuckerman's model includes factors that overlap with each other, according to some reviews. This fact is especially marked in the Activity and Extraversion dimensions; however, the authors defend the separation between the two factors in order to account for sociability and activity level separately.

In any case, the work of Zuckerman's team has been replicated in different populations and has shown its ability to predict facets such as the search for novelties, psychopathy, reward dependence, self-direction, harm avoidance, or cooperativeness.

On the other hand, factor analyzes have clearly revealed the existence of the Openness to experience, the absence of which is the key difference of Zuckerman's proposal compared to the Big five. In this model it would be diluted in the rest of the factors, especially Sensation seeking.